What happens when the storm breaks before the spell does.
We boarded.
Turbulence grew —
typhoon season.
Nothing new.
When the screaming
started,
I knew to be scared.
I held back.
I felt embarrassed
to ask a stranger
for his hand.
What if we didn’t die
today?
When we landed,
we waited
for hours —
on someone else’s
runway.
Pressure in the cabin.
Raised, demanding voices.
The door opened
and closed.
The white guy left.
We remained.
Finally,
like refugees,
we disembarked —
200 km away.
Inside
people were frantic.
Staff mauled.
Like a drowning child
sinking their saviour.
Our bags,
dumped
onto a conveyor.
The end.
I didn’t speak
Chinese.
I was lost —
I watched,
on mute.
I never lost sight
of the man who’d sat
next to me.
“We’re catching a cab,”
he said.
Five perfect strangers —
only him
who understood.
Our final destination:
just me and him now.
Flooded, knee-deep.
Dark, foggy.
Silence, inside
and out.
Only the low hum
of the engine,
and the water
at our doors.
From the shadows —
of our haunted river road
cruise —
Neptune’s statue
emerged from the mist.
I blinked,
I laughed,
what the fuck-
was I dreaming now?
My hotel was underwater.
I had no chance
of getting there.
Reception wouldn’t send
a boat.
We drove on.
“That’s my apartment,”
he pointed to the sky.
“I would invite you,
but it’s inappropriate.”
I nodded silently.
I didn’t feel unsafe.
The taxi stopped.
Like an island
in the middle of
the sea.
The driver panicked,
unfamiliar with the city
and the terrain.
Persuading —
loudly,
like only a negotiator
knows how.
We continued.
A new hotel, located.
Safe, dry —
but not mine.
“Here is my number,
if you need anything.”
I was thankful,
deep gratitude.
I had a bath
to steady my soul.
The next morning,
I met
to negotiate
a few more cents
on plastic toys.
“I didn’t think you’d make it,”
she said.
She was hours late
for the meeting.
The floods still raged.
I was on time.
I was done.
Marginalia
This trip was the last negotiation trip I took in my corporate life. When I found out I was pregnant in the airport on the way home, I realised that anything could have happened to me that night and without a signal on my phone, no one would have known any different.
At the time, I was only focused on my itinerary, which was to essentially haggle for pennies over toys that only cost pennies in the first place. It was only upon reflection did I think ‘what the fuck is this all about’ and decided this wasn’t it anymore.
